For many years, toy ovens have been extremely popular products for use by children, in order to enable a child to cook, on a small scale, various products specially designed for use by children. Such products include food products, craft items, and various toy or play products. Although numerous products have been constructed for being prepared by children in toy ovens and toy ovens have been extremely popular products sold in the marketplace for numerous years, these prior art toy ovens have suffered from common drawbacks which have been incapable of being fully eliminated, until the present invention.
One of the principal difficulties encountered with prior art toy ovens is the inability of these prior art products to be completely safe, assuring that children are incapable of gaining access to heating zones when the zones are hot and can cause severe :injury to a child. Although numerous prior art constructions have been made in an attempt to provide a safe oven which is inaccessible to a child when hot, such prior art constructions have failed to be completely effective in preventing unwanted access to the heating zone or the hot product and the inherent dangers associated therewith.
Another problem typically encountered with prior art toy ovens is the length of time required for cooking and cooling of the product once cooking has been completed. Due to the construction of these prior art toy ovens, either the product being cooked or the oven chamber and product must be fully cooled before the oven and the resulting product is safe for the child to touch. Since the prior art systems employ static ambient air for cooling and the cooking temperature is substantially greater than ambient, a long waiting time is required before it is safe to access the cooking chamber or the cooked product. Since children using toy ovens are extremely anxious for immediate use of the product being cooked, any built-in safeguards for reducing access to the heating chamber or the cooked product are often circumvented by the child, often resulting in burns or other injuries.
A further drawback typically encountered in prior art toy ovens is the expense required to provide built-in safeguards against injury as well as the home assembly required for constructing a disassembled oven. Typically, prior art systems are sold in a kit form, substantially disassembled, in order to reduce manufacturing expenses and enable the manufacturer to sell the product at a more reasonable cost. However, the more safeguards incorporated into the oven to attain added assurance against unwanted injury, the longer the assembly time required. Typically, rapid safeguards require complex assembly, causing the purchaser to incur substantial difficulties and added time.
Therefore, it is a principal object of the present invention to provide a safe and highly efficient toy oven which operates automatically to virtually eliminate access to elevated temperature zones and/or the product when hot.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a toy oven having the characteristic features described above which operates automatically to prevent access to unwanted areas whenever the oven is activated.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a toy oven having the characteristic features described above which substantially reduces the time required for cooling the oven and the products being heated or cooked.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a toy oven,having the characteristics features described above which is capable of being manufactured comparatively inexpensively while also providing a fully operational, safe and efficient oven construction.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a toy oven having the characteristic features described above which is capable of being quickly and easily assembled by the user.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a toy oven having the characteristic features described above which employs a minimum of component parts, thereby enabling the oven to be economically produced and sold substantially fully assembled, virtually eliminating assembly by the consumer.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a toy oven having the characteristic features described above which virtually eliminates a child being able to gain access to unwanted areas of the oven until sufficient time has elapsed to assure safe, trouble-free access.
Other and more specific objects will in part and will in part appear hereinafter.